Google has long made it clear that content is king, however someone finally flat out asked what Google will do against websites that are found to have auto-generated content. Confused what that is? That’s probably a good thing; since that usually means that you won’t have any auto-generated content on your website. Google defines auto-generated content as content that’s been generated programmatically. Often this will consist of paragraphs of random text that makes no sense to the reader but which may contain search keywords. So let’s say you are utilizing a script that reads various RSS feeds and automatically generates articles based on these feeds, or simply creates a search results page for a specific keyword that is shared across those articles.
Google’s gives the following examples of auto-generated content:
- Text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing
- Text generated through automated processes, such as Markov chains
- Text generated using automated synonymizing or obfuscation techniques
- Text generated from scraping Atom/RSS feeds or search results
- Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding sufficient value
One user who has seen these types of sites asked Cutts specifically if Google is taking any action against these sites.
What does Google do against sites that have a script that automatically picks up the search query and makes a page about it? Ex: you Google [risks of drinking caffeine], end up at a page: “we have no articles for DRINKING CAFFEINE” with lots of ads.
Matt Cutts responded with the following video:
“We are absolutely willing to take action against those sites,” Cutts said. “So we have rules in our guidelines about auto-generated pages that have very little value and I have put out in the past specific calls for sites where you search for product a VCR or laptop or whatever and you think you really get a review and the new land there and the very first thing you see is ‘0 Reviews Found for [blah blah blah]’.“